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Beatles News Archives

2001 Page 5

Beatles First Manager Releases Interview CD

Allan Williams, The Beatles first manager, has released a CD telling his side of The Beatles story. Now the 70-year-old, who lives off his state pension, has promised to 'blow the lid off the early days of the Fab Four' in The Man Who Gave The Beatles Away.

In the CD the ex-entrepreneur, described by Sir Paul McCartney in The Beatles Anthology as 'a great guy, a really good motivator', tells how the boys learned their trade abroad. 'There have been so many myths regarding the early years of the Beatles that I thought the time was right to put the record straight,' he explained.

The launch of the CD, available over the internet on http:// www.bandline.net, coincides with this year's Mathew Street Festival which is expected to attract some 300,000 music-lovers to Liverpool.

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Live at The BBC to be Re-Released

Live at the BBC is to be re-released by EMI/Capitol on June 5th. It was deleted in 1995 to prevent it taking sales from the Anthology CDs.

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George has Lung Tumor Removed

Former Beatle George Harrison, who survived a cancer scare four years ago, recently had a malignant tumor removed from his lung, his lawyers revealed yesterday.

George, who gave up smoking after being diagnosed with throat cancer, underwent surgery at the famed Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and is recuperating in Italy.

"The operation was successful, and George has made an excellent recovery," his lawyers said in a statement that made a joking reference to Harrison song titles.

"Although ‘All Things Must Pass' away, George has no plans right now, and is still ‘Living In The Material World,' and wishes everyone all the very best. God bless, and not to worry." The Mayo Clinic did not release any details about when the surgery took place or whether George, required follow-up treatment.

George's first cancer diagnosis came in 1997, after he discovered a lump on his neck. Surgeons removed a nodule from his lung and put him through two courses of radiation. "I got it purely from smoking," he later said. "I gave up cigarettes many years ago, but had started again for a while, and then stopped in 1997." Last year, George said he felt healthy.

"I don't smoke anymore," he said. "I'm a little more short of breath than I used to be, so I don't see myself onstage lasting a full 14 rounds. Some of the songs take a lot of breathing. Otherwise, I certainly feel quite fit." Dr. Ronald Blum, director of the Beth Israel Cancer Center in Manhattan, said Harrison and other smokers are at "significant risk" for cancer of the lung, throat and esophagus long after they kick the habit.

"The effects of tobacco can last many years. It takes many years for the body to heal the damaging effects," said Blum, who has not treated Harrison. Cancer wasn't George's only brush with death.

Two years ago, a knife-wielding, Beatles-obsessed lunatic broke into Harrison's mansion in England and stabbed him 10 times. The guitarist suffered a punctured lung in the terrifying attack, which ended only when his wife hit mental patient Michael Abram over the head with a poker and a table lamp.

Despite his recent health hurdles, the intensely private George was "in the best of spirits and in top form - the most relaxed and free since the attack on him in 1999," his lawyers' statement said.

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Lennon Lives On

Cover experts Benhams have just produced a new English Heritage 'blue plaque' cover to mark the childhood home of John Lennon. The cover features a miniature replica blue plaque, a 1st class stamp cancelled by an English Heritage Savile Row postmark dated December 8, 2000.

If you want to get hold of the Lennon cover contact Benhams at Benham House, Folkestone, Kent CT20 1SD. Tel: 01 303 226777.

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Paul McCartney to give wings to UK poetry day

Paul is to take to the stage in London's West End to read a selection of his poems in celebration of National Poetry Day, organizers said.

It will be the first time that Paul, who published an anthology of his poetry and lyrics, "Blackbird Singing,'' earlier this year, will read his work in London.

He has given three previous public readings of his poetry in New York, his hometown Liverpool and at the Hay-on-Wye literary festival in the Welsh border town.

Joining Paul on stage on October 4 will be a band of British bards including Frieda Hughes, daughter of the late poet laureate Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, and the event organizer London poet Michael Horovitz.

The recital at The Queen's Theatre will commemorate the 21st anniversary of the UK's Poetry Olympics -- an event created in the 1980s by Horovitz to try and resuscitate the popularity of British poetry. "The jazz and beat poetry boom of the Sixties was overtaken by yuppie careerism,'' Horovitz said in a statement.

"I'm heartened to know that there are at least 300 active professional poets in Britain today, and that the popularity of poetry is increasing with every year,'' he said. Nine British performance poets will participate in the event, some with jazz accompaniment.

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Lennon's Drawings Show in London

Thirteen drawings by John Lennon went on public display for the first time as part of a new exhibition to highlight the former Beatles artistic talent.

The sketches, on loan by Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, are part of a larger display at a London gallery of 150 images created by Lennon between 1968 and 1980.

"The pictures show John's love for his family and attitude toward everyday life,'' said exhibition organizer Jonathan Poole. "They are amusing. They are meant to be funny and they shouldn't be taken too seriously.''

The exhibition's main attraction is a sketch, "Multiple Self Portrait,'' which is made up of tiny line drawings. Other sketches show Lennon and his wife's famous "bed-in'' when they spent a week in bed in 1969 in a public appeal for world harmony.

Another sketch, "I'm One of Your Biggest Fans,'' depicts Lennon chatting to a female fan on a New York street. It was drawn a year before Lennon was fatally shot outside his New York City apartment in 1980.

A selection of colorful children’s pictures that Lennon drew for his son Sean is also on display. The exhibition, which is free to the public, is being held at Harbour Yard. Some of the prints are for sale at prices ranging from $653 to $5,800.

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Serbian City Street Named After John Lennon

A street in Serbia's second largest city, Novi Sad, has been named after late Beatles star John Lennon, a local official said, adding that it was his daughter who gave him the idea.

"We have printed out the board with John Lennon's name and we have decided to invite his widow Yoko Ono and son Julian to attend the opening ceremony,'' Vladimir Vrgovic, the president of an urban commission which made the decision, told Reuters. The street in what is the capital of the northern Vojvodina province is currently named after a Serb who took part in the Spanish civil war in the 1930s.

Vrgovic said his daughter, "raised in the spirit of rock and roll,'' first suggested naming the street after the assassinated subculture pop icon in 1998.
"I raised my daughter Milena in the spirit of rock and roll, to give her a wider perception of the world, unlike many of her peers who only know about Novi Sad, well, Belgrade at the most,'' Vrgovic said.

The commission's decision broke with an old tradition of naming streets after prominent politicians in favor of a new fashion of honoring artists and sportsmen. "We decided to name this street after a man who left an important mark in the world's cultural heritage,'' Vrgovic said.

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Paul McCartney and fiancée enjoy romance of Venice

It's been more than 20 years since Paul McCartney was last in Venice, but within five minutes of his return to the lagoon city last week, he was making waves and talking of romance.

Paul turned up unexpectedly with his fiancée Heather Mills Tuesday to catch a viewing of an animated film he produced at the Venice Film Festival. But the visit wasn't all about the movies, with the multimillionaire musician confessing that he'd also found time for romance.

"Oh yeah, it's a romantic outing as well,'' he told Reuters in an interview. "It's a romantic city, and now that Heather and I are engaged it was like, 'Hey, got to go to Venice','' said the vocalist and former bass guitarist for The Beatles.

But on the subject of marriage it was all Sir Paul was giving away, saying only that he and ex-model and anti-landmine activist Mills, 33, who announced their engagement in July, planned to tie the knot some time next year. Paul has added extra star power to the world's oldest film festival, already glittering with the likes of Nicole Kidman, Denzel Washington and Charlize Theron.

Fans and paparazzi mobbed the British couple as they arrived in the rain for the showing of the 13-minute animation, ''Tuesday,'' and Paul serenaded cheering on-lookers as he stopped to sing a few lines from the classic Italian song ''Volare.''

It was the first time Paul, the executive producer of ''Tuesday,'' had attended the festival, but it was his second time in Venice, having played here once with his post-Beatles band, Wings. "We did come here in the '70s to do a concert to raise money to stop the city from sinking -- and it looks like we've saved it so far,'' he joked as he lounged in the famed Cipriani Hotel, which sits on its own island in the lagoon.

"I remember the city got quite upset with us then as one of our vans cracked a paving stone... "It's such a pretty place, but unfortunately I do become a tourist attraction,'' he said, relating how he and Mills had gone for a walk in St. Mark's Square and quickly realized that hundreds of tourists had switched from filming sites and instead trained their video cameras on the couple.

"Luckily we're always doing good things when that happens,'' he added. Paul, involved in movies since his Beatles heyday, when he, John, Ringo and George hammed it up in !A Hard Day's Night'' and "Help!,'' is increasingly involved in the animated film industry.

In addition to "Tuesday,'' a clever little film about frogs in small-town America and which features his voice and music, McCartney made "Rupert and the Frog Song" in the 1980s and is now working on a feature-length animation along the lines of classic Disney, he said.

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Hey Jude in Grammy Hall of Fame

The Grammy Academy has inducted "Hey Jude" into its Hall of Fame. The 1968 song joined other notables such as Aretha Franklin's 1967 hit "Chain of Fools,'' Ray Charles' "I Can't Stop Loving You'' (1962) and the Drifters' "Save the Last Dance for Me'' (1960).

Singer-actress Julie London, who died last year, is honored with the induction of her 1955 hit "Cry Me a River,'' as was the rock group The Byrds for "Turn! Turn! Turn!'' (1965).

All but two of this year's crop of inductees -- jazz clarinetist Artie Shaw's 1938 recording of "Any Old Time'' and James Taylor's mellow 1971 hit "You've Got a Friend'' -- hail from the 1950s and '60s.

Among them are the Bob Dylan's rock anthem "All Along the Watchtower,'' as performed by the Jimi HendrixExperience (1968), "California Dreamin''' by the Mammas and the Papas (1966), Johnny Cash's gritty "Folsom Prison Blues'' (1956) and the Supremes' Motown classic "Stop! In the Name of Love'' (1965).

The Beatles remain one of the most honored acts in the Hall of Fame with two entries in this year's list -- the single "Hey Jude'' and their 1964 album, "Meet The Beatles!''

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Paul Backs U.K. Anti-Milk Campaign, Presents Award To Chrissie Hynde

Paul McCartney is lending his backing to a British program to get children to stop drinking milk. The former Beatle, through his continued involvement with People For The Ethical Treatment Of Animals (PETA), is strongly supporting the group's anti-milk campaign, which has members picketing outside schools and telling children that drinking milk will make them fat and cause pimples.

PETA is also handing out trading cards to school-age children that feature characters including "Phlegmy Phil," "Chubby Charlie," "Windy Wendy," and "Spotty Sue," which tell children that they too will suffer from the ailments listed is they drink milk.

McCartney's PETA pedigree is well known, and he's supporting the group in two different ways this week. A DVD and VHS tape of his 1999 PETA benefit concert in Los Angeles, Paul McCartney And Friends: The PETA Concert, came out September 4, and he's hosting the group's 21st annual fall gala on September 8 at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. At the event, McCartney will present Pretenders leader Chrissie Hynde with the Linda McCartney Memorial Award, which recognizes Hynde's continued activism on core issues, including animal rights and vegetarianism.

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John Lennon Letter Up for Sale

John Lennon wrote "for laughs'' and didn't always mean exactly what he said, according to a letter written by the former Beatle to an old school friend.

The two-page letter to Stephen Bayley is up for sale at a Sotheby's rock memorabilia auction. The auction is scheduled at the new Sotheby's Olympia salesroom in West Kensington, London.
Dated Sept. 1, 1967, the letter was written the day The Beatles recorded "I Am the Walrus.''

In it, Lennon tells Bayley, "All my writing ... has always been for laughs. I do it for me first. ... But it doesn't necessarily have to correspond to my thoughts about it OK?''

He cites the song "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite,'' which he told Bayley was "taken almost word for word from an old theatrical poster.'' The Sotheby's auction includes a brown suede jacket of Lennon's and a collection of SexPistols items, including Johnny Rotten’s "Anarchy'' shirt.

Meanwhile, TNT announced it is planning a tribute concert to Lennon on Sept. 20 at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. It will air on the network on Oct. 9. The event will feature artists including Lou Reed, Moby, the Stone Temple Pilots and Nellly Furtado. Kevin Spacey will be the concert's host.

The concert will benefit the Violence Policy Center and The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence united with the Million Mom March.

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Sir George's 6-CD BoxSet.

Sir George Martin, will have a book and CD package published by Genesis Publications in the autumn.

Playback will be an illustrated memoir of the great producer's life and work, featuring autobiographical text and many photographs and items of memorabilia taken from his private collection. The book will be issued in a numbered, limited edition set, signed by Sir George himself, with an accompanying CD of spoken-word recollections covering some of the most memorable events of the 75-year-old's career.

EMI will issue this boxset to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Sir George Martin's association with EMI, and will contain 150+ tracks, including three Beatles numbers.

I Want To Hold Your Hand'', ''Yesterday'' and ''In My Life''. Also featured are Paul McCartney & Wings, Cilla Black, Rolf Harris, the Goons, Gerry & the pacemakers and more contemporary artists including Sting, Peter Gabriel, Sinead O'Connor, Ultravoxplus pieces by Sir George's own orchestra.

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Sir Paul and Lulu

Paul McCartney will duet with Lulu on a track entitled ''Inside Thing'', for an album to be released later in the year. The song will contain samples of Wings' ''Let 'Em In'' and rap vocals.

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Tribute Album For Linda McCartney

A 2CD Beatles tribute album dedicated to Linda McCartney is likely to include covers by the Corrs, Madonna, Art Garfunkel, Britney Spears !!!!, Lenny Kravitz, Queen and former members of Wings, as well as Zak Starkey and Julian Lennon. The album, which will raise funds for the Women and Cancer charity, should appear later in the year.

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Blue Skies for September

The new album by Paul McCartney set for release on September 4th, will be titled ''Blue Skies'' the band on the album, Paul says, consists of ''three guys that my producer put me in touch with.... They're three Americans'' - drummer Abe Laboriel, Jr., Nashville-based keyboardist Gabe Dixon and guitarist Rusty Anderson, with Paul as the bass player.

Paul recorded 18 tracks during the two weeks of sessions with producer David Kahne. Paul also said, ''I think it's very likely that I might tour.... about September.'' ''I wanted to get away from big stadium shows and would prefer to play at low-key venues''. Australian press reports say Macca is scheduled to tour Down Under late this year or early in 2002.

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Beatles Theme Hotel Gets the Green Light

Need a good night's rest after strolling Liverpool's Penny Lane or walking to Strawberry Fields? Take it easy at ‘The Hard Day's Night Hotel’.

The 120-bedroom, four-star Beatles-theme hotel won final planning approval Friday and clinched $3.3 million in funding -- but it won't be ready to welcome weary fans of the ‘Fab Four’ until 2003.

"The rooms will all be Beatle-themed and we'll have specially designed large and small murals of The Beatles in the hotel as well,'' Steve McGriskin, spokesman for project developer Cavern City Tours.

"It is a very exciting project and there has already been massive interest, nationally and internationally, in the plans,'' he added.

The lavish hotel will stand in Liverpool's city center, rising next to a faithful reconstruction of the Cavern Club -- the dingy venue where John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr began their rise to fame in the 1960s. Project developers said tasteful Beatles-theme murals and decor -- based on songs, places or events associated with the band -- will decorate each bedroom. Double rooms will be available for about $85

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George Michael returns Lennon's piano

Gay pop star George Michael has returned the walnut piano John Lennon used for composing his 1970 hit "Imagine" to the Beatles Story Museum for display.

The Steinway Model Z upright piano, purchased by Michael last year, was back on display Thursday at the museum in Liverpool, England. The exhibit is part of the city's annual Beatles Week celebrations.

The 31-year-old instrument had previously been on loan to the museum before the owner decided to sell it last year. The singer/songwriter reportedly paid $2 million for it in an auction. According to the Associated Press, Michael had promised to return it to the museum after the purchase. He said the piano was "not the type of thing that should be in storage somewhere or being protected, it should be seen by people."

Michael intended to record a song with the piano for his next album, but his publicist told AP it was unclear whether the recording had been made.

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Beck, Moby Celebrate Lennon

An all-star lineup of musicians, including Beck, Alanis Morissete, Moby, Marc Anthony and Nelly Furtado will pay tribute to John Lennon next month.

New York's Radio City Music Hall will host the TNT-sponsored The Come Together Tribute: A Night for John Lennon scheduled for September 20th. The network previously brought together artists in honor of Brian Wilson, Johnny Cash , Bob Marley , Burt Bacharach and Joni Mitichell, filming the concerts for screening at a later date.

The Eurythmics' Dave Stewart will be the musical director for the Lennon event, and the night promises some interesting pairings, including Moby and Furtado. "We're gonna be doing, 'I Am the Walrus,'" Furtado told Rolling Stone. "Some rendition of it. It's not going to be as good as Oasis', but we'll try our best."

Tickets for the show go on sale August 29th at 9 a.m. EST and cost between $53 and $203 through Ticketmaster.com. Those tickets not sold via the Web site will be made available through standard outlets on August 31st.

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Auction Sells Beatles-Signed Paper

A pizza-stained piece of paper signed by three of the four Beatles sold for $24,000 at auction. John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison signed the paper during their 1964 tour of Australia. Drummer Ringo Starr had laryngitis and was not on the tour.

A fan managed to get the autographs while the band was staying in a hotel in the southern Australian city of Adelaide. The signed piece of paper was sold to an anonymous collector Monday night in Melbourne.

It may be worth more if it can be confirmed that the stain is actually the thumbprint of one of The Beatles. "I understand they were having a pizza in their hotel room in Adelaide when giving the autograph,'' auctioneer John Roper said Tuesday. "There is a thumb print there, but I don't know whether it's the pizza man's or John Lennon's.''

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George Harrison moves to Swiss villa

George Harrison has moved into a luxury villa in the Italian-speaking southern Swiss canton of Ticino, where he was recently treated for a brain tumor, Swiss newspapers reported.

The 58-year-old guitarist/singer from the legendary Liverpool quartet bought the house, which has 14 bedrooms, sixbathrooms and a swimming pool, from London-based wine merchant Timothy Abegg, the papers said.

The hillside estate where George and his wife Olivia are living is perched above Lake Lugano in the village of Montagnola, once home to Nobel Literature laureate Hermann Hesse.

George, the youngest of the Beatles, underwent radiotherapy at a Swiss cancer clinic in Bellinzona during May and June. He survived being stabbed in the chest by an intruder in his London home in late 1999. The newspaper Blick quoted local people as saying he fell in love with the area during his stay there.

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Lennon letter to McCartney to be auctioned

A draft of a letter from John Lennon to fellow Beatle Paul McCartney and his wife Linda exposing the strains around the 1970 breakup of the Fab Four will come up for auction in London in October. The letter, full of deletions, misspellings and profanity, swings between vitriol over the treatment of Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono and disdain for Linda McCartney to evident affection for Paul.

A spokeswoman for Christie's, which will put the letter under the hammer on Oct. 4 for an anonymous owner, said it last changed hands in the United States in the early 1990s and was expected to fetch up to 80,000 pounds ($112,000) this time.

The six-page letter, thought to have been written in 1970 or 1971, calls Linda ``middle-aged'' and ``cranky'' and predicts the marriage to Paul will not last. The marriage lasted until Linda died of cancer in 1998. Lennon was shot dead by crazed fan Mark Chapman outside his New York apartment in 1980.

Referring to the treatment Lennon and Ono received in the early days of their highly public relationship, the letter accuses his friends of hypocrisy. Lennon also repeats his by then well-aired views on being given the Member of the British Empire in 1965 -- an honor he returned publicly four years later.

"I do remember squirming a little -- don't you Paul -- or do you -- as I suspect still believe it all,'' the letter asks rhetorically.

Lennon's letter reveals the deep personal and financial rifts inside the band that set the world on fire in the 1960s and became the first true supergroup. He also accuses McCartney of letting success go to his head and of believing that the Beatles alone sparked off the youth revolution that swept the planet.

"Of course we changed the world -- but try and follow it through -- get off your gold disc and fly,'' Lennon wrote. "I know the Beatles are 'quite nice people' -- I'm one of them -- they're also just as big bastards as anyone else, so get off your high horse,'' he added.

The letter reveals that McCartney and the band's business manager Allen Klein tried to stop Lennon announcing his intention to quit because the news would damage its business interests. But it ends on a tender note, indicating that Lennon was leaving the door open to resuming severed relations with the McCartneys at a later date. "In spite of it all, love to you both from us two,'' it concludes.

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